Film Festivals Under the Microscope at Avignon/NY

Film Festivals Under the Microscope at Avignon/NY

With four film festivals transpiring over the last ten days in New YorkCity alone (Women’s Fest, Gen Art, International Independent Film &Video, and Avignon/NY) — not to mention LAIFF having just finished andCannes just around the corner — it is particularly apt that indieWIREorganized another look at the graces and gluts of today’s indie festlandscape. Too many festivals? Alternative distribution method?Community gathering or industry melee? (One morally righteous audiencemember asked the panelists if they felt some sort of programmingguilt?). All were questions explored by the panel “Film Festivals: Where toNow?” taking place at Avignon/NY’s seminar-laden festival, moderated byindieWIRE’s own Eugene Hernandez and Mark Rabinowitz and includingrep-legend and Split Screen creator, John Pierson, the IndependentFeature Film Market’s Sharan Sklar, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’sGenevieve Villaflor, Hamptons Head Programmer Stephen Gallager andAustin Film Fest programmer Jason White.

Too Many Festivals or Too Many Films?

“The film festival scene has changed to reflect the film productionscene in my opinion,” said John Pierson, “there are a thousand featuresbeing made independently in America, and less than 10% are ever going tofind some sort of theatrical home; that leaves a lot of films lookingfor some place for somebody to wind up managing to see them.” And forfilmmakers who cannot find distribution, “The growth of the festivalcircuit,” maintained Pierson, “has been a way for providing a safetyvalve.” Rather than deride the festival boom, Pierson and thepanelists see it as a necessary outgrowth of a rampant production slateand a marketplace simply not large enough to sustain it. “It’s actuallya very good thing that there’s some kind of exposure that can come,”says Pierson, “which perhaps, even though the film is not going to enterthe theatrical marketplace, can still get that filmmaker or makers intothe mix so they can make more movies that will.”

Following on Pierson’s premise, the panelists first discussed theproblems of indie exhibition before hitting the topic of filmfestivals. While Gallager lamented the fact that “the theatrical markethas shifted so radically to bigger and bigger films,” Pierson claimedthe problem resides in the outrageous number of indie product. “If allthese films can’t sustain two weeks in New York City, really, instead ofblaming the system by being congested with Hollywood product, we need totake a look at other factors as well. The films that open and close intwo weeks in New York are not getting shoved out by other films, they’regetting shoved out by doing no business, because the audience is havingto choose between 5 and 6 films [released every week].”

“It’s very tough these days for the handful of films that I would reallylike to see (that aren’t getting the kind of marketing that Miramax isdoing),” said Gallager, “they’re not in the theaters that long.”Pierson interrupted by giving an historical perspective: “But it’s amyth that they used to stick around that much longer. Everybody has tohear about ‘My Life as a Dog’ and ‘My Dinner with Andre,’ and if youlook at those film’s grosses in their fifth or sixth week, in 1982 or1985 dollars, they were still getting way more people coming to see themthan the films that are getting bumped out after two weeks now.”Still, Pierson, both praising and blaming Miramax, admitted “the way inwhich the top ranked theatrical independents have been marketed hasactually made a theatrical audience way lazier about casting a wider netand checking our more films.”

The Options?

If the films won’t get theatrical, “What does that mean” askedHernandez, “if a lot of these films are only going to play at filmfestivals or regional festivals, . . .given that there is no financialmodel for that?” Pierson’s answer: “Any filmmaker who is in that stateof limbo has to switch over to the concern about recouping the budgetand get into the state of mind of ‘I’d like as many people as possibleto see my film.’ . . .in the mean time, exposure is the name of thegame.” Jason White follows the calling card model, claiming filmmakersshould travel with other projects prepared. “You really have to havethat second project, it’s really important. Don’t just think this isyour baby and lifelong dream — it’s great and all, but what happenswhen your baby doesn’t sell?” Even if you don’t get a distribution deal,the panelists agreed that festivals can function as networkingopporunities, where filmmakers can make valuable connections.

Sklar cited Scott Saunders as an example. His film “The Headhunter’sSister” wasn’t picked up, but the director did win the IFP’s “Someone toWatch Award” and the cash and esteem that goes with it. “Another thingthat I’ve seen filmmakers do at film festivals,” Mark Rabinowitz noted,“is they’ll bring their film around, a film that doesn’t get picked up,but in going from festival to festival, not only do they meet otherfilmmakers, they meet producers, and can actually package their nextfilm while they’re bouncing around from festival to festival.” StephenGallager also tolled in with proof from the Hamptons where aprize-winning filmmaker invited jury member Roy Scheider to star in hisnext film while a short film picked up a producer. But Gallager quicklycorrected the omni-business mentality, advising “[You] shouldn’t go inthere, looking for a deal, [you should] just enjoy the experience ofseeing your film with an audience.”

For the Community. . .?

Audiences are what it’s all about anyway, right? Gallager notes, “A lotof regional film festivals have, in fact, taken the place of art housecinemas in their communities.” Even though there may be “more screens”available, there are less strictly alternative venues and film festivalshave the ability to expose audiences to non-mainstream fare, “It’sabout cultivating audiences to accept the types of the filmsthat aren’t what they grew up watching,” said Sklar. “In some ways, itcan help develop those audiences for independent films.” Villafloragreed, “People should really take a chance about seeing independentfilms or foreign films. . . especially at film festivals, they werechosen for a particular reason, there’s merit, it’s definitely importantto take that chance.” Festivals provide ample opportunity for thatchance to take place and for that reason, should always be encouraged.“I do think that the audience who has a knowledge of off-Hollywood isvastly expanding,” Pierson contributed to the discussion, “whenfestivals are marketed, they’re marketed as an overall concept. . . whatyou’re selling is the overall concept of the festival, therefore peoplewill check out a number of different films within the festival.”

Or the Fame? (aka Sundance Envy.)

Gallager, who claims he watched 700 films for the Hamptons last year and“selecting 10 was really difficult,” feels that festivals “functiondifferently in every community. Most of them are community events,” hecontinued. “Only a small handful have any kind of clout within theindustry or have enough industry presence to be able to launch a film.That shifts every year.” Besides the obvious front-runner Sundance,Gallager felt “the LA Independent Film Festival has really come onstrong, because they have a very small selection of exclusively worldpremieres.” Gallager mentioned others: Mill Valley, San Francisco,Chicago, and added, “It’s hard to say which festival beyond Sundance isgoing to break a new film. For the most part, when a filmmaker islooking for a festival to premiere their film in, they have to take thatinto account if they’re looking for distribution.” At Fort Lauderdale,and Palm Springs, Gallager talked to filmmakers who wondered where allthe press and distributors were.

“Isn’t it a problem that every festival wants to be the next Sundance?”asked Hernandez, “Are filmmakers understanding that every festival isnot or should not be a festival that has a representative from everydistributor?” Pierson replied, “When a festival starts out andover-reaches,. . . it’s kind of pathetic. That’s one thing. When afestival is starting or declaring themselves, you have to take it at anarm’s length and watch a bit. What’s also odd,” continued Pierson,talking about the much-touted SXSW film festival, “is if you look at itthis year, it’s profile truly now exceeds its distributor attendance bya landslide. There really wasn’t a good distribution attendance at SXSWthis year. You would think from its public profile that there would bemuch more.”

At the Hamptons, Gallager felt “a lot of pressure,” claiming “the boardis very divided and this is typical of a lot of festivals, of whether itshould be primarily a community event or an industry event.” Gallagerconcluded, “There is certainly a lot of Sundance envy out there.There’s a lot of players out there who feel like festivals should have acertain stature. My attitude is that you have to grow into thatstature. You can’t create it overnight.”